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Samsung 850 Evo Pro SSD

CheMillan

CheMillan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 5, 2015
107
60
Los Angeles
Hello,

I've been doing research and reading about user's reviews who bought SSDs for their laptops so I've made a decision and I'm ready to order the Samsung 850 Evo Pro 512GB SSD to replace the lowly 5400rpm hard drive that came with my MacBook Pro but I'm having second thoughts. I do a lot of heavy audio and video edits and the 512GB SSD may run out of space too fast and the constant record-edit-delete concerns me. So I have two options: 1) spend the extra money and go with the 1TB Samsung Evo SSD which is way more expensive or option #2: go with a 1TB 5400rpm regular hard drive and install the maximum amount of RAM to 16GB in the MacBook Pro. I welcome your suggestions. Thanks.
 
The biggest difference in the speed of the machine is the SSD, spend the money on that. You don't need the 850 pro samsung, there are other alternatives out there but the samsung is very good.
 
First of all, in order to provide sound advice, it's important to know which MacBook Pro you have (screen size and vintage; Mid 2010 13" for instance).

And let's get the names correct: There is a Samsung 850 EVO and a Samsung 850 Pro. There is no "850 Evo Pro".
For most people, the Pro is overkill, though it does have a very nice 10 year warranty.

If the reason you're concerned about the "record-edit-delete" is the limited write tolerances of SSDs, you really have nothing to worry about. In the case of the Samsungs, tests have shown they'll do upwards of 2 petabytes - enough to write the full capacity of a 500GB drive every day for 11 years.

You have a third option in addition to your listed two, which might be worth considering: Get the 512GB (or smaller even) and take out your optical drive and replace it with as large a hard drive as you want for increased storage space.
 
My MacBook Pro tech specs: MacBookPro9,2 Mid 2012, 2.5GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive. This MacBook Pro was purchased 2 weeks ago so installing a second drive in the optical bay will void the one year warranty and applecare so the third option is not an option.
 
CheMillan said:
My MacBook Pro tech specs: MacBookPro9,2 Mid 2012, 2.5GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive. This MacBook Pro was purchased 2 weeks ago so installing a second drive in the optical bay will void the one year warranty and applecare so the third option is not an option.
Click to expand...

Plop a SSD in there and get an external drive as a scratch disk if you really need space.
 
I'm somewhat biased, but I think the SSD is the best upgrade you can do if you are looking for performance. Everything happens quicker.

Check to see if you have any swap usage in Activity Monitor (memory tab). This will tell you if you are fine with your 4 GB of ram or if you need more.
 
Thanks.

To me it comes down to Need vs Want. Speed and performance is not as important as what I actually need which is storage capacity for my audio and video editing and it is a huge audio and video library I work with. I have 6 external hard drives I use for backing up my projects once the editing is finished. I have two choices: 1) pay a premium for a 1TB SSD or 2) install a regular 1TB spinning hard drive and add 16GB of RAM to the MacBook Pro.
 
Have you considered hybrid drives? They are regular hard drives but with a small SSD that is used to speed up the drive. Either way, it sounds like you will not be able to fit 6 drives worth of data on 1 TB. They do sell a 2 TB drive in the 9.5 mm drive height configuration.

You could also save a bit by getting the Evo over the Pro.
 
CheMillan said:
Thanks.

To me it comes down to Need vs Want. Speed and performance is not as important as what I actually need which is storage capacity for my audio and video editing and it is a huge audio and video library I work with. I have 6 external hard drives I use for backing up my projects once the editing is finished. I have two choices: 1) pay a premium for a 1TB SSD or 2) install a regular 1TB spinning hard drive and add 16GB of RAM to the MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you just answered your own question, "Speed and performance is not as important as what I actually need which is storage capacity". Based on that statement, I would either get a 1TB/2TB 7200 rpm Internal HDD.

The SSHD (hybrid drive) is nice, but Seagate maxes out the 7200 rpm model at 750gb.
 
If you're not in a position to spend the money on a SSD, then go ahead and stick with a HDD. I would suggest reconsidering because SSDs give a huge boost to performance that is immediately noticeable in normal day to day usage.
 
I will never use a spinning hard drive ever again. SSD's are light years better than spinners. Spend the money on the SSD, you won't regret it. Then if you feel you need more RAM down the road, do that. RAM is fairly cheap still.
 
Get the 1TB SSD, I can't stand spinners now other than for storage. All my macs are SSD based.
 
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